Viacom Chief Says Paramount's Doing “Extraordinarily Well”: Video

The folks at CNBC’s Squawk Box didn’t even try to challenge Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman’s talking points in his appearance on the show this morning. He acknowledged that the company has “a few ratings issues” — a euphemism for the situation at Nickelodeon where the audience is down 28.5% so far this quarter vs the same period last year and MTV which is -9.4%. He repeated his view that “it’s all about the programming” which he’s overhauling, and problems with Nielsen’s measurements. He also talked up Paramount and says the current pay TV arrangement — where subscribers have to pay for channels that they don’t watch — is a “great economic model.”